About

Please note: This is not your typical travel blog. While I sometimes reference specific bars and restaurants I’ve enjoyed, this blog is not a means to promote or review people, places, and things. I created this blog to organize my thoughts and document my perceptions as an immigrant and vagrant. This is why some of my posts may seem puzzlingly abstract. My mental illness is at the forefront of many of these posts. I often write about how my depression and mania affect my daily life and those around me. I hope that my experiences will inspire and move you to go, go, go.

Bio

I’m Gabi, a twenty-something American girl living and working in Lille, France as a Lectrice d’Anglais (English lecturer) at the Université de Lille 3. Last year I worked in Bordeaux, France as an English Teaching Assistant through TAPIF (Teaching Assistantship Program in France).

This isn’t my first time abroad. In fact, my hyphenated identity as an Italian-American cemented my wanderlust at a very young age. My family moved like nomads throughout the continental U.S., alas settling in the mountains of East Tennessee (however, my father’s Philadelphia accent and my mother’s New York attitude forever sealed me as an outsider in the Deep South.).

I was finally able to go abroad during my undergraduate studies. I studied Italian film for a month in Northern Italy, and my wanderlust has been insatiable ever since. I later studied in Angers, France for one semester and seized the opportunity to explore Europe while occasionally making it to class (oops). Finally, my senior year of college, I spent a month coping with omnipresent culture shock in Northern India.

Upon graduating with a dual-degree in English and French, I moved to New England to prepare my M.A. in French at the University of Connecticut, where I taught undergraduate French for two years. During this time, I realized I loved teaching, but that I no longer wanted to pursue a doctorate. I graduated in May 2014 and accepted my work contract with TAPIF.

Secretly, I fear that I will never be content resting in one place, but this upcoming year should be a time of deep self-reflection, late nights and early mornings, revelations, and ecstatic experiences.

Here I am. Stay tuned, and as always, feel free to contact me with any questions or comments.

I'm a twenty-something insomniac with a caffeine addiction and chronic wanderlust. I recently graduated with my M.A. in French, and I've spent the past two years living and working as an English teacher in France. I now work as an English professor at a university in Lille, where my students are learning to never omit the Oxford comma.